World rankings

[Big Foot]

New Zealand climbed something like 24 places didn't they?

[Wax Jacket]

to be fair if Egypt hadn't suffered a rush of blood to the head against Algeria in Omdurdan we'd have really struggled to make the 2nd round

[papereyes]

They didn't like it up 'em

[Y21_Royal]

There's also the ELO rankings which actually have us up to 6th. They differ slightly from the FIFA rankings and have some wildly different results.

Can't be bothered to type out how its all worked out but its all on the wikipedia page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings

[Barry the bird boggler]

There's also the ELO rankings which actually have us up to 6th. They differ slightly from the FIFA rankings and have some wildly different results.

Isn't that the one based off of how many of their songs each player in each squad has on their iPods though? Hardly seems an intelligent way of working out rankings (but then that is probably as good as whatever method FIFA use)

[cmonurz]

There's also the ELO rankings which actually have us up to 6th. They differ slightly from the FIFA rankings and have some wildly different results.

Isn't that the one based off of how many of their songs each player in each squad has on their iPods though? Hardly seems an intelligent way of working out rankings (but then that is probably as good as whatever method FIFA use)

It's an interesting formula and more sophisticated than the FIFA rankings system - what I like is that it can be used to compare teams of different eras - a bit like cricket's ranking points in that sense.

In that regard, the table on that Wiki page throws up an interesting result with Hungary's 1954 World Cup finalists as the 'best' team of all time; in other words, in terms of their results, who they beat, in what competitions and by how many goals, they were the most successful team in history, and ranked higher than Brazil's 1962 winning side.

Noted the stat on another thread that Spain have won 51 of their last 55 games, or something like that, and I guess that contributes to their 3rd place in that 'all-time' ELO table.

Also interesting that the current Dutch side is up there - I think they were unbeaten in two years until the World Cup final.